RADAR ENVELOPE VISUALIZATION

The Navy and Marine Corps cannot expect to always operate aircraft within permissive environments. Potential employment scenarios include operations against advanced surface-to-air missiles and early warning radars with detection ranges advertised beyond 200 nautical miles. Low-observable aircraft are not a panacea. Very-low frequency radars and multistatic arrays offer limited direction finding and possible ranging of fifth-generation aircraft at tactically significant ranges in certain conditions. Radar directed weapons will continue to be the most capable and deadly weapons aviation must contend with for the foreseeable future. This project provides a proof-of-concept for a program that generates a three-dimensional volume representative of threat radar performance, which will aid planners in developing routes that avoid or minimize exposure to these threats and improve understanding of other radar phenomena. This representation includes a basic atmosphere model that demonstrates the effects of refraction, a depiction of the shadow zone, and terrain-masking effects. Future development would allow inclusion of location-specific weather and simulation of specific threat radars, allowing near real-time evaluation of radar capabilities that greatly exceed the abilities of current analytical tools.http://archive.org/details/radarenvelopevis1094559602Outstanding ThesisCaptain, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited